


Hair of the Dog

by alteringegoism



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Caring Harry, Doctor Louis, M/M, Past Niall Horan/Zayn Malik, Puppies, Sad Niall, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-29
Updated: 2014-08-01
Packaged: 2018-01-21 05:07:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1538795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alteringegoism/pseuds/alteringegoism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some wounds, some losses, require more than simply time to heal. <i>Similia similibus curentur</i> - Let similar things take care of similar things.</p><p>Featuring VetTech!Harry, WitsEnd!Niall and the rascally beastie that brings them together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Dog's Breakfast

Not unusual for him, Harry noticed the puppy first. She was a tetchy little thing. All wriggling paws, piercing yips, and mulish expression. Held onto for dear life under the fumbling arm of a blond man, her floppy, tan tail curled high over a fuzzy back the dull shade of a paper bag. Perhaps somewhat plain when compared to other breeds of puppy, but looking into her lively coal black eyes set above a similarly dark button nose at the tip of her pointed little face, Harry could already see that in a year’s time she would be a real beauty.

Bursting into the veterinary clinic, the skinny blond man wasted no time rushing up to the front desk, puppy clutched like a football in the crook of his elbow.

“Louis. I need to see Lou,” the man panted in a clipped, Irish accent.

“Dr. Tomlinson is currently in an appointment,” the receptionist said, her lips pursed and her stare narrow.

“Help me!” the man said and thrust the puppy out in front of him. Perked ears at the top of her sleek head swivelled to catch every new sound. The darling thing tried her level best to squirm out of his hold.

The puppy had just succeeded when Harry swooped in and plucked the tumbling body out of mid-air. She went slack in his large, steady hands and stared up into his green eyes. Even her constant barks quieted for the moment.

The man sagged against the desk and took a deep breath. “Thank you! She’s the spawn of Satan, that one.”

“What’s her name?” Harry cooed.

“Banksy.”

Harry didn’t bat an eyelash; in his line of work he had heard them all. He snuffled her sweet face into his broad chest.

“Niall? What’s all this then?” Longish brown hair and a white coat clad torso poked into the room.

“Lou, thank fuck! She got into the rubbish and I have no idea what she ate and–”

Banksy took that moment to bare sharp incisors at Harry and proceeded to vomit down the front of his mint green scrubs.

Cleaning up in the staffroom, Harry didn’t mean to listen in on the conversation taking place in Louis’ office, but their voices, one soothing and the other frantic yet somehow still agreeable to the ear, carried easily. And with the door wide open, Harry found his interest straying to the unknown man’s thin body only partially obscured by a baggy, somewhat stained, raglan shirt and ripped black jeans and– was he wearing two different sneakers?

“I think she got most of it out on Harry, so just watch her for any changes in behaviour such as more vomiting, loss of appetite, or listlessness and bring her back if you’re worried.”

“I don’t know if I can do this, Lou. I can’t even keep houseplants alive and now I have a dog? A dog that tries to eat every fucking thing, and with the way she lunges for it, I think wants to bite my face off.”

Louis took Banksy from the man’s tightening grip and shushed her yapping. “She’s only a puppy, Niall. This is them at their messiest and most annoying. She’ll get better when she’s older.”

“She won’t even shit in front of me, Lou! I take her out every bloody 15 minutes like the breeder said to and she’ll still use the moment my back is turned to shit and piss all over my carpet. My very expensive, very white carpet.”

“You’re under a lot of stress, Niall. Maybe you should think about giving her away.”

The hand that reached up to stroke at brown fur trembled. “No! I–I couldn’t. She’s Zayn’s. Some days, she’s the only reason I get up in the morning.”

Banksy tried to nip at a finger that strayed too close to her mouth.

Louis made soft fussing noises and Harry didn’t know if they were directed at the dog or the man.

“How old is she again?”

“12 weeks.”

“Ok, I’ll schedule you in for her six month check-up and spay.” Louis handed the puppy back and draped himself around the man’s hunched shoulders. It was strange to hear his boss’ usually irreverent voice so gentle. “I'm glad you're up and about and outside, no matter the reason. How about I stop by and see how you’re making out next weekend, alright? Let’s invite Liam over too. Bet you haven’t seen him in ages. Have a lads’ night.”

“You don’t need to do that.” The man edged out from under Louis’ arm.

Louis wouldn’t let him escape that easily. He hauled him back by the collar of his shirt. “We all miss him, Niall. I don’t want you to be alone with this, and I want you to one day not want that too.”

Harry thought that neither pair of blue eyes was ever meant to look that sad.

“One day,” the blond echoed, but his tone and shuttered expression promised nothing.

“However long it takes.” Louis made the pledge for the both of them and finally let the other go. He patted Banksy on the head and narrowly avoided pointed puppy teeth. “You know I’m always a phone call or visit away.”

“I know, thanks mate.” Looking downward to the floor, Banksy growled up into his face. He sighed. “Might have to take you up on that offer.”

The next occasion, of what would become a string of many, came much sooner than anyone expected. Nearly two weeks to the date of their last visit, dog and owner again passed through the front door of the clinic.

Banksy, on her own four tiny paws this time, strained at the end of her purple leash. Dressed in a holey sweatshirt and loose cargo shorts, the man's scrawny, sunless legs were on full display even though it must have been close to a windy 10 degrees outside. At least his shoes matched even if the feet jammed inside them were sockless. The fabric handle of the leash looped several times around his left hand while the other held far out in front of him a dangling sandwich baggie.

“Banksy!” Harry dropped into a low crouch and held out his hand. He never forgot a dog, and especially not such a spirited little spitz. That went triple when the pup happened to belong to an owner who had left quite the impression.

Banksy barked at him before trying to dart around his long, bent legs.

Harry intercepted her. “No,” he said firmly. “Sit.” Her tongue poked out of her mouth. Producing a treat from his pocket, he held it in front of her face and pushed her bum into a sit. “Good sit,” he praised her warmly as soon as her furry butt hit the ground. He let her grab the biscuit.

Banksy stayed sitting while she crunched away.

“That’s amazing.”

“She doesn’t actually understand the command at this point, but if you keep repeating it and doing that, she will one day soon,” Harry explained.

The plainly admiring look sent his way brought a hint of red to Harry’s cheeks. Dipping his chin, Harry unfolded into his full height and looked at a distant point somewhere over the shorter man’s shoulder. Anything to not stare into bright blue eyes.

“Is there something I can help you with, Mr. Horan?” Harry asked before remembering that the two had never been introduced. He may or may not have looked the other up in the appointment calendar the moment he’d had a chance. The hand he ran through his shrub like brown hair twitched.

“Niall,” the other corrected absently and wrinkled his nose at the baggie. “Banksy puked this up on her bed this morning. I had hoped it was noodles, even though I haven’t had spag bol in ages. But then they...moved.”

“Ah round worms. Not to worry; it’s an easy fix. I’ll do up a prescription for you and dispose of this. How does that sound?” Harry pinched the edge of the baggie between his thumb and forefinger.

“Absolutely brilliant.”

Harry made the mistake of meeting and subsequently falling into oceanic eyes. He stood stock still for several beats past normal.

“Thank you, ah…?”

“Harry,” he said in an embarrassingly breathy voice.

“Harry,” Niall repeated reflexively. “A pleasure.” His upturned lips didn’t quite reach a full, real smile.

Harry felt the sudden, nigh overwhelming urge to poke at Niall until he was gasping with laughter and the sorrow that shrouded him from the rest of the world evaporated right along with it. Harry had to settle for binning his dog’s worms and lightly brushing his fingertips against Niall’s palm when he handed over the paperwork and medication.

“Half a tablet with her supper, and the other half to be administered a week from now, also with a meal.” Harry lapsed into silence with a furrowed brow, their business concluded and unable to come up with a reason to prolong it though he thought furiously.

Niall shuffled his feet towards the door and tugged on the leash. “Well, bye Harry.”

“Have a wonderful day, Niall,” Harry replied with feeling, meaning the platitude a great deal more than he ever had before.

Niall blinked, gave him another ghost of a smile, and was gone with a protesting Banksy pulled along behind him.

A month later.

“Louis!” Niall charged into the clinic with Banksy held up by her armpits. Her panting mouth hung open in a canine grin.

At the sound of Niall’s voice, Harry dropped the folder he had been looking at and hurried into the waiting room. The need that strained the other’s pale face drew Harry to his side immediately. He barely noted the green long sleeved T-shirt and plaid flannel bottoms that looked suspiciously like pyjamas.

“Harry!”

His stomach clenched upon hearing his name spoken with such fervency. “What’s wrong?”

“I was cooking—not even! It was a shitty salad. I don't even like salad! And the avocado pit rolled onto the floor. She swallowed the bloody thing whole!”

Harry shook his head to clear it. Niall required his focus. “How long ago?”

“15-20 minutes?”

At that moment, drawn by the commotion, Louis waltzed into the front room. He looked the situation up and down and tossed back the wispy strands of his brown hair that hung fashionably in his face. “Jesus, Niall. I should give you a volume discount with the amount of times you’ve brought her here already.”

“You don’t charge me.”

“Well maybe I should start then.”

“Louis!” Niall shook Banksy at him.

Harry stepped in and took charge of the situation. “She swallowed a large pit not too long ago. A dose of hydrogen peroxide then.” He waited for Louis’ nod of confirmation. With utmost care, he lifted Banksy into his arms. “We’re going to induce vomiting.”

Niall almost refused to relinquish the puppy. Fear had leeched his skin to the colour of parchment.

Harry ducked his head closer. “I’ll take care of it,” he said in his low, quiet voice.

“Thank you,” Niall said softly and let go. Blue eyes met green, grew more focused than Harry had witnessed previously, and then skittered away. Niall took a step back.

“Lead the way trusty assistant,” Louis said, his own eyes sharp on the both of them. He threw up a hand and smacked Niall in his skinny chest when he made to follow. “You stay here in the _waiting_ room.”

“But Lou,” Niall whined and chewed on his lip between even, white teeth.

“There’s only one Doctor Tomlinson here, and last time I checked within these walls his word is law. Here, you’re not even of the lowly status of veterinary technician Styles.”

“Hey!”

“We’ll look after her. Bring her back good as new. I’m a fine doctor if I do say so myself.”

“You do. Frequently.”

Louis gave Niall’s remark the response it deserved, which was none at all. “Now be a good boy and sit.”

Unlike Banksy, Niall didn’t need to be told again.

They left Niall collapsed in an uncomfortable plastic chair and entered the prep room. Louis propped his upper body up against the closest wall, legs crossed at the ankle, and watched as Harry settled Banksy on the examination table. His hawk-like stare dissected more than just the proper handling techniques and dosage.

“Niall’s a close, personal friend of mine.”

“I can see that,” Harry said and depressed the plastic syringe into the puppy’s mouth.

“His life is...complicated.”

“This one literally is a handful.” Proving his point, Banksy shook her head and struggled mightily under Harry’s hold. He ran soothing fingers over her small body.

“I didn’t mean because of the mutt.”

“Shh. The bad man didn’t mean that. I’m sure your sire and dam are beautiful and pure.” Tongue lolling out, Banksy’s narrow ribcage heaved up and down. “Sadness doesn’t suit him.” Harry crooned lowly into one furry, pointed ear.

“It really doesn’t. If you only knew what he was like before...”

“I would have liked to,” Harry said without thinking. He coughed and looked closer at the individual hairs that bristled in Banksy’s ruff. “Hope you can help him get back there, Lou.”

Louis’ assessing gaze raked over the other, but still intent on his little patient, Harry didn’t notice.

“You know, I reckon I just might be able to.”

“That’s good.” Harry scratched gently at incredibly soft fur. “Doing so good,” he praised.

The force of Banksy’s vomiting launched the sizable avocado pit halfway across the length of the room.

Louis did not move an inch from his casual lounging. “An 8.5 for style, Styles. And I call not cleaning that up.”

Harry just rolled his eyes and grabbed the disinfectant.

Graciously, Louis allowed Harry to present the subdued, but well puppy to Niall. The blond smushed her under his chin and for once Banksy allowed it. She rested her small head in the hollow of his throat.

“Thank you both. She’s a pain in me arse, and I’m pretty sure she hates me, but I can’t lose her too.” Niall said the last part so quietly that Harry almost didn't hear it.

Louis placed his hands on his hips and adopted his bossy, doctor knows best voice. “For her own safety, she would benefit from more training, and you Niall, clearly need to enlist the help of a professional.”

“I dunno…”

“There are plenty of obedience classes that are regularly run in this city. I’m sure one of them can accommodate your oh so busy schedule of sitting at home or sleeping at home.” Louis’ sarcasm was dialed up to 11.

“Go to classes? You mean in public? Around people?” Niall’s voice hitched on the last word. He took a step towards the exit.

Louis held up two conciliatory hands. His scrutiny cut to Harry and his teeth showed when he smiled at him. “I have a brand new idea that just occurred to me. Why doesn’t our resident dog whisperer here make a few visits to yours and show you how it’s done in the comfort and privacy of your own flat?”

Shaken by the idea of having to rejoin the crowded land of the living (Louis’ clinic didn’t count), Niall turned hopeful blue eyes to him. “Harry?”

“Yeah, Harry.” Louis’ pair narrowed to threatening navy points.

And really, how could Harry be expected to say no to either of that?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fandom is going to be the death of all my real life responsibilities.


	2. Gone to See a Man About a Dog

The following Sunday on Harry’s day off, because the clinic subscribed to the Lord’s day of rest and Louis Tomlinson was nothing if not a god, Harry knocked on the red painted door of Niall’s two storey flat in Primrose Hill. Fast barking started up instantly. The sound grew closer and more piercing along with the click-click clatter of claws on hardwood.

“Banksy! Shut it!” Niall’s exasperation also carried quite clearly through the door. It cracked open a sliver to reveal a single blue eye and a vertical strip of tensed face.

“Harry.” The visible parts of Niall drooped in relief. “Come in.” He stepped away from the door, nudged it all the way open with one bare foot, and then planted both on the floor in a wide-legged stance. The barking increased to a frenzied yowl.

Once inside, Harry watched Banksy throw her small body against Niall’s calves and warding fingers. Miniature paws scrabbled and black eyes fixed intently on Harry’s skinny jean clad legs.

Harry bent over and clapped his large hands together, the sound booming to keen puppy ears. Banksy reared and cut off mid-bark. “Best to interrupt any undesirable behaviour, then redirect and reward.”

“Redirect?” Already, Niall sounded overwhelmed. Swamped by a loose-fitting hoodie and knee length, low slung athletic shorts, the smudge of his eyes large in his face, Niall looked in need of a proper cuddle and some extra fattening sweets.

Harry shoved his hands in his pockets and cleared his throat. “Into a desired behaviour. Try pushing her into a sit.”

Banksy’s bum reluctantly hit the floor, helped along by the weight of Niall’s hand. “Name the command.” Banksy’s shoulders wiggled in place. “Praise and treat.” Sharp teeth nicked the small piece of duck jerky that Harry held out.

“Where did that even come from?” Niall stared intently at the vicinity of Harry’s denim constricted crotch.

“It’s small,” Harry said. He flushed bright red. “The treats, I mean. Not, anything else.”

The burst of laughter that rang through the foyer seemed to take them both by surprise. Harry’s lips lifted into an answering grin, dimples making an appearance in blood warmed cheeks. He’d stick his foot in it a million times over if it meant that happy, unrestrained sound.

“Vital information, mate. Thanks for sharing.” Niall actually winked and Harry’s insides somersaulted. “And I apologize for the poor welcome, but I suppose that’s what you’re here for. Ill mannered brutes, the pair of us. Let me take your coat.”

While Harry took off his shoes and set them next to a pair of scuffed Dr Martens, Niall hung his brown suede bomber on a hook beside a heavy, black leather jacket. Neither article went particularly well with the athletic hobo look that Niall seemed wont to sport.

Harry followed Niall into a bright and spacious living room.

“Make yourself at home. Anything to drink?”

Studying the expertly framed and colourful prints that lined most of the stark white walls, Harry hummed a, “No thanks,” and then turned to examine the glossy guitars of all makes and models that stretched across another. “You have a lovely flat.” The _massively expensive_ tail end of his thought went unsaid. Not for the first time, Harry wondered about the particulars of Niall’s life.

One specific graphic drew him across the plush cream carpet for a closer look. Larger than most of the others and set prominently in the middle of the longest wall, it depicted in black and white and a single splash of yellow a crowded auction house with an artwork up for bid.

“’I can’t believe you morons actually buy this shit,’” Harry read aloud the caption in the artwork within the artwork.

“A Banksy,” Niall said at his shoulder. The two shared another unexpected smile. “Rather ironic that we bought one, but I think that was part of its charm.” As soon as he finished the sentence, Niall’s mouth clicked shut and firmed, the tiny, genuine curve of his lips he’d gifted Harry rescinded. “Speaking of Banksy.”

“Right.” Harry took the hint and launched into the lesson he had spent all of the previous day and most of the night preparing.

20 minutes later, an agitated Niall manhandled Banksy into one last sit while Harry talked him through. He spoke loud and slow over the barking. For such a wee thing, Banksy had quite the voice on her, and she certainly wasn't shy about exercising it frequently.

“Think that’s enough for today,” Harry shouted.

“Praise be ta Jesus.” Niall, bent at his knobby knees, let go of Banksy who shot off at once to the other side of the room. She kept baleful black eyes on her owner.

“That went well don’t you think?” Harry rocked forward on the balls of his feet, his tall body swaying.

Niall snorted and stood up straight.

“Really,” Harry insisted and waved his arms about at Niall and Banksy. “She’s in the early stages of learning. Give her time.” His glance at the puppy must have lingered a touch too long for she barked at him and disappeared around the side of Niall’s red couch. “Have to say though, Banksy is one of the more, ugh, stubborn dogs I’ve encountered.”

“That’s certainly a nicer way of putting it.”

Banksy’s pointed muzzle periodically peeked around the upholstered corner to mark their location, ears flattening and withdrawing whenever she saw them looking back. “So what made you choose a Finnish spitz? Rather uncommon in these parts.”

“It wasn’t my choice.”

At Niall’s flat tone, Harry backpedalled and tried to steer the conversation back to safer ground. He rattled off more doggy facts. “Working breeds, with their intelligence and independence, are usually a challenge to train. The key for Banksy will be gentle, positive reinforcement and consistency. Don’t expect miracles from her right away.”

“Believe me, my expectations are rock bottom. I’ll settle for her shutting her gob sometimes and not chewing my toes off.”

“I think together we can manage at least that.”

A muscle in Niall’s cheek jumped, jaw tightening as his gaze slid to the side of Harry. He crossed his arms over his chest for good measure. “Well, I got a bit of washing up to do.”

Harry accepted the obvious dismissal with a smile and a nod. “Yeah, ok. Keep on with the training. You have my mobile number if you need anything.”

“Yeah,” Niall said, the weary air that perpetually hung around him not dissipating. Here in his sunlit, lived in living room, empty mug, open sketchpad, and various pens and markers strewn across the modern black coffee table, it seemed to grow heavier than ever.

“Ring or text me anytime. Whenever you need me,” Harry offered.

Niall’s blue eyes glittered like frost and looked about as brittle when they finally sliced back to Harry. “Don’t be making such offers so lightly.”

“I’ll be there,” Harry said. The quiet, simple words flowed forth between them and struck Niall no less hard for all their softness.

“I’m tired, mate. Think I’ll have a quick kip.” Niall’s stiff arms rose over his head in an exaggerated stretch.

Harry stared. “Uh, yeah, ok. I’ll be going, right now, I guess. To my home.” The pale, exposed band of Niall’s stomach slowed Harry’s drawl to the pace of treacle.

The hint of abs heated to red before Niall’s arms dropped and the curtain of his hoodie drew closed. “You know where to find the door. Thanks for coming. Bye.” Bare feet retreating as he spoke, Niall fled from the room and up a flight of stairs.

“Bye,” Harry called belatedly after him.

Banksy padded out from behind the safety of the couch and stood at the foot of the stairs. Her black nose sniffed and pointed up steps that stretched too far and high for her little legs. She whined low in her throat.

Harry patted her on the head on his way past and ignored the offended flinch. “Keep him company alright?”

He let himself out. And if Harry took an inordinate amount of pleasure in the way that Niall’s voice had squeaked, that was a secret between him and Banksy.

At around 9 o’clock on a Thursday night, a few more training sessions into their relationship, Harry’s mobile lit up with Niall’s name. Clad only in a pair of pants, Harry lunged smoothly across the bed to grab his flashing phone off the bedside table. Not so suavely, he yanked the cord clear out of the charger port when his momentum carried him from the cushy mattress to the unforgiving floor.

“Hello? Niall?” Harry answered laid out on hardwood. His teeth clenched around his pained windedness, which he attempted to swallow down without the other hearing.

“Harry? I…” The tension in Niall’s tinny voice reached clear across the distance. “I don’t…Banksy, she…”

“You know you can tell me anything, Niall.” Mobile tucked under his ear, Harry groped for his skinny jeans and forced them up his long legs.

“She chewed up one of Zayn’s markers. His _favourite_ one.”

“Oh, um, I’m sorry for that?” Harry picked up a faded sweatshirt before quickly exchanging it for a nicer green jumper. He somehow managed to shrug it on over his head on his way out the bedroom with his phone still glued to his face.

Niall started off speaking so quietly that Harry hardly breathed to hear him. “I fucking lost it, Harry. I couldn’t stop screaming.” By the end of it, the pitch of his voice stabbed at Harry’s eardrum. “I didn’t mean to do it. Please believe me.”

“I believe you,” Harry said as calmly as he could while his heart attempted to hammer its way out of his throat. He eased his wallet into his pocket and slipped on his brown boots.

“I hit her.”

Standing on his doorstep, Harry swallowed hard and turned his key in the deadbolt. “Is she ok?”

“I think so? It was a swat on her bum, but now she won’t come out.” The voice on the line faded to a whisper.

The cool night air soothed Harry’s heated brow. “Be there in 30 minutes.”

A pause followed where all Harry could hear was their ragged, intermingled breaths.

“I’ll leave the door on the latch.”

24 minutes later, having run the few blocks from the tube station, Harry let himself into Niall’s flat.

“Hello?” he called down the dimly lit hall and removed his shoes.

Harry noted once more that the place appeared untouched from his previous visits. A pair of Air Force 1s still looked freshly kicked off by the front door. In the breakfast nook of the open kitchen he passed, a sleek black trench remained draped over the back of a chair. Half a pack of Marlboro’s lingered upon a narrow console with no one to smoke them.

“Niall?”

A groan came from the living room. Sock feet carried Harry silently in that direction. He found Niall sat upon his red couch, his white face directed towards nothing. Harry slipped into the empty space beside him and waited.

“Hi,” Niall finally muttered.

“Hello there.” Harry dared to bump their shoulders together. He almost jumped out of his skin when Niall collapsed against his side. Luckily, his arms worked faster than his brain and automatically rose to the occasion. The heat of Niall’s mouth scalded his neck.

They held their whispered conversation in the dark.

“How are you doing?”

“Shouldn’t you be asking that of the dog?”

“Banksy’s a resilient girl. I’m more worried about you.”

“She was so scared.”

“Where is she now?”

“Under my bed.” The breath on Harry’s neck stuttered. “I didn’t mean to.”

“I believe you.”

“It’s just, every day I lose a little more of him. Soon there won’t be _anything_.”

Though Harry still didn’t quite understand, so much desperate feeling rattled the bony chest under his arms that he couldn’t believe that Niall would ever truly lose something so precious to him. Harry rubbed at Niall’s shoulder blades and told him exactly that.

Niall drew away and stared at him. Harry wished for the light of a lamp, for any illumination however faint, so that he could better read those shadowed eyes and give Niall everything he needed. “Things will look better after you check on Banksy.”

Niall glanced at the stairs and then at his lap. “I don’t want to go up there.”

“I’ll go with you.”

They climbed the stairs in single file. Harry followed the sway of Niall’s hips and he held his hands outstretched at the ready, just in case. Of the four doors in the upstairs hallway, only the last two were closed. They walked past a bedroom and a bathroom and stopped outside the first closed door.

“What do I do?”

“Talk to her.”

Niall’s face scrunched. “Really?”

Harry nodded, untamed brown waves of hair bobbing encouragingly.

Niall sighed. “Ok, here goes.” They pushed inside the master bedroom.

Harry couldn’t help looking around, couldn’t keep from greedily absorbing the bits and pieces of Niall woven into cloth and dusted across wooden surfaces. To their left, one side of the open closet bulged with colourful and sporty tees, hoodies, jeans, and snapbacks. A more eclectic mix of fashion, and a great deal more black, shaded the other half.

A king size bed with a funky, geometric patterned bed spread and a white, quilted headboard backed up against the middle of the opposite wall. The rumpled right side of the bed contrasted sharply with the military neatness of the left. Green eyes darting surreptitiously, Harry not-stared at the bedside table and the much more blatant piece of the puzzle that decorated it.

The floorboards creaked under the weight of their straggling feet. Niall’s lips wobbled at the whimpering cry that emanated from under the bed. He dropped to his knees, lifted the overhanging blankets, and bent his head low.

Harry looked his fill at the simple, silver frame and the 20x30 photograph contained therein.

“I’m sorry.”

Frozen in time on a cloudless day, the handsome, dark haired man had his arms wrapped tightly around Niall’s slim waist.

“I swear on me gran I won’t ever do it again.”

While the blond threw his head back in laughter at the camera, the happiness that brightened dark eyes shone only for Niall. The joy that softened firm lips was exposed only when in intimate proximity to a smooth, pale jaw.

“I’ll be more careful and patient. You can destroy anything of mine you like. Just don’t…”

This was Niall as he should be: held, protected, loved.

“Please come out.”

Banksy lunged forward and bit Niall on the chin. “Oww, shit. Little fucker!” Skinny limbs flailed. Niall fell onto his backside on the floor.

Scurrying out from under the bed, Banksy darted around the room and jumped into her play bow, curved tail vibrating like a flag in a gusty wind over her behind. She barked repeatedly.

“Ok, ok, I reckon we’re even now. C’mere.” She pounced on Niall’s wiggling fingers. Grabbing her by the scruff, the two rolled around on the floor, laughter and barking blending into a cheerful cacophony.

Harry watched over them while playtime lasted a few more frenzied minutes, the corners of his eyes crinkling in fondness. Signalling the end of the game, Banksy shot over to her bed in the corner of the room and sprawled out on her stomach. With her head down, eyes closed, and all four legs spread out, she closely resembled a rather adorable piece of road kill.

They shut the door on her slumber and tiptoed downstairs. On their way into the living room, Niall flipped on all the lights. He stopped in the middle of the room and scratched his fingers through the blonde hair that curled fetchingly around his ears.

“Thank you for coming.”

“Of course.”

“No, really. You’ve helped me a lot and for no real reward. And I know I haven’t exactly been the best company. Have to buy you a pint, or five, one of these days. Get Louis to give you a holiday, that slave driver. So yeah, thanks again. I owe you one, for sure.”

The corner of Niall’s mouth lifted around his babble; the perpetual lines in his forehead relaxed for this brief moment of ease between them. Looking into those lightened blue eyes, Harry almost hated this thing inside of him that clawed to be set free. He tried to hold it in, to tamp it down, to keep it from ruining _everything_ , he really did.

“Niall?” The plea escaped from out of him.

At something found deep in Harry’s voice, Niall’s shoulders stiffened. Had Harry not been such a keen observer of all things Niall over the past months, he never would have noticed the subtle return of strain that had ever been a part of the other man in their short acquaintanceship. Harry hated to be the cause of it now, but he had to speak up or he would implode with it.

“If that’s how you feel, there is something…”

“What is it?” Apprehension warred with curious interest on Niall’s features. He bit hard at his lower lip, the delicate flesh blooming red under the pressure.

“Your place isn’t puppy proof.”

“Huh?” White teeth released the abused lip, mouth parting and hanging slightly open.

“I’m sorry, but there’s too much—” Harry fluttered his large hands in the air. “Loose stuff. ‘S’not good for Banksy. She could choke. You need to put it away.”

“You– I thought– not that I wanted–” The words tripped and tumbled over each other in the rush out of Niall’s mouth. Huffing out a quick breath, he forcibly shut it. Niall averted his face, even the tips of his ears burning, and looked around the living room at the cluttered coffee table and the teeming shelves. Anywhere but at Harry really.

Niall took it all in and then squared his shoulders. “You’re right.”

“I am?” The lopsided smile that Niall sent him hit Harry in all of his tender parts.

“Yeah. But I don’t know where to start.” Above still pink cheeks, blue eyes peeked at him from under dusky lashes. “Will you help?”

“Yes,” Harry answered, as if it were really a question, as if his heart hadn’t relinquished all choice in the matter ages ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, three parts at least...maybe four.
> 
> This fic is me dabbling in what I like to call a glacial burn. Honestly, I think this whole thing was an excuse to write about my dog. Eater of tissues, destroyer of pens, I wouldn't trade her for the most obedient dog in the world.


	3. Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

“Whoa there, Niall. Is that a clean shirt? And matching socks? I mean, I know seeing me is the highlight of your month, but really, you’ll turn my head.”

“Shut up, Louis,” Niall muttered upon entering the clinic with a reluctant puppy in tow. He resisted the urge to run his hand through his brushed and styled hair.

“Rather nasty bite you’re developing there. Taking lessons from Banksy are you?” Louis, standing in wait in his white doctor coat and flood length trousers, gave him his own toothy grin.

As if hearing her name spurred her on, Banksy ran out from behind Niall’s jean clad legs and jumped between the two men. Her fur puffed up and the entirety of her little body vibrated with the force of her barks.

“Banksy, quiet,” Niall half-heartedly ordered, the twitch of his lips utterly convincing of his severity when she nipped repeatedly at Louis’ exposed ankles.

“Fine. I’ll leave your precious master be.” Louis bent and pushed the puppy’s head away from his tender skin. With his hand on her neck, he held her black gaze with his own. “For now. But as for you, little dog, just you wait until I get you alone,” he said in a carrying undertone, the menacing words pitched towards a certain Irishman’s ears.

Louis made a sharp slashing motion in the air that encompassed Banksy’s belly. Rolling his eyes, Niall left the puppy in his friend’s capable hands and approached the reception.

“Good morning, Niall.”

“Hi, Harry.” The look he shared with the green-eyed man behind the desk gleamed full of amusement.

“Hello. Don’t mind me,” the receptionist sat between the two men, who had yet to stop smiling at each other, interrupted.

Startled, Niall glanced down into the pinched, vaguely familiar looking face of one of Louis’ other employees. Barely skipping a beat, the blonde smoothly leant upon his forearms on the counter in front of her. Long muscles pulled taut in the pale arms left exposed by his white, short sleeve t-shirt. Harry traced the slow, open-mouthed smile that spread across Niall’s face as he proceeded to work his rusty, Irish charm. Within a few minutes, he had cajoled several schoolgirl giggles from the middle-aged receptionist.

“When you’re ready–” Harry jabbed a plastic clipboard with several pages attached to it on to the desk in between them, “I have some paperwork and instructions to go over with you before Banksy’s spay.” He jogged out from behind the reception desk to stand at Niall’s side. Curling strands of brown hair brushed against blond as Harry leaned in to deliver his explanation.

Harry finished off with, “You look great,” and then paused with his mouth parted. He stood so close to Niall that he could count the tiny creases that formed in between his eyes when a single brow went up. “Um, good. I mean better. You’re looking better, is what I am trying to say.”

“Thanks. I feel…better.” Niall sounded almost surprised. The grim twist of lips that settled in place after he spoke brought an answering, unpleasant ripple to Harry’s stomach. His fingers itched to smooth the harsh line that formed when Niall’s brow drew down in thought.

With his impeccable sense of timing, Louis chose that moment to barge in and drop Banksy in Harry’s arms. “Assistant, go.” Fingers freed, he swung around and pinched hard at Niall’s nipple through his shirt. “And you, none of this gloomy shit. It’s a wonderful day. I’m about to cut out your dog’s reproductive organs. Go out and rejoice that you are still in possession of yours.” Louis’ hands, as eloquent as every other part of him, mimed having a wank.

Reluctant laughter spluttered out of Niall’s mouth. “It’s a Tuesday morning, Lou.”

“Like that’s ever stopped you before. Or have you become a prude in your advanced years? Old age robbed you of memory, has it? Why I seem to recall–”

Niall slapped a palm over Louis’ filthy smirk. “That’s enough of trying to embarrass me, you arse.”

“Oh I’ve just begun,” Louis declared, voice muffled and eyes dancing devilishly, but the way he leant into the press of Niall’s fingers and the puff of his chest at being the author of that smile told the real story.

Harry juggled the squirming, almost full-grown puppy in his arms, her fur sliding roughly against the material of his scrubs, and cut in. “See you here at three then?”

Niall nodded, but remained standing in place. Louis shooed him towards the door. “Go on then.” Still, Niall made no move to leave.

“Just let me...” Niall’s skinny legs moved in a blur over to Harry. Once there, he dropped a kiss on Banksy’s furry head and then simply rested his cheek lightly against her soft warmth, eyes slipping closed. “Is pizza ok?” Niall murmured out the side of his mouth too quiet for even Louis’ keen ears.

“Yes,” Harry mumbled back.

Banksy put up with one more smacking kiss before Niall stepped away. Ragged fingernails rose absently up to his mouth as Harry whisked her away to be prepped for her surgery. Louis snickered and clapped him on the shoulder. “You’re worse than most parents.”

“Guess that makes you the bad uncle,” Niall said and finally allowed Louis and his chuffed grin to push him out the door.

Harry arrived at Niall’s flat promptly at 5:30pm, medical scrubs exchanged for tight jeans and a carefully chosen plaid shirt that skimmed the trim lines of his arms and chest. A bulging messenger bag hung against his hip. The front door opened easily under the turn and press of his hand into a silent front hall. Just as quietly, Harry closed the door behind him and placed his loafers on the elevated rack next to Niall’s blindingly white high tops.

The scent of pepperoni and grease that permeated the air went straight to Harry’s hollow stomach after a long and busy day at the clinic. Led by the nose, he walked into the living room and found Niall there on the couch with a slice in hand and his other stroking gently across Banksy’s prone side. A football match on low buzzed in the background. Blue eyes and another pair of glazed black flicked to him, the former creasing in welcome, the latter barely reacting as they would on a normal day.

Setting his bag down by the stairs, Harry crossed the expanse of carpet and picked up the plate waiting for him on the coffee table. He helped himself to a slice and slotted in next to Niall on the couch. Their knees knocked together, though neither drew any attention to it by doing anything like moving away.

“How is she doing?” Harry pointed his chin at Bansy and examined the neat stitches that ran in a vertical line up her shaved belly.

“Ok, I think. Completely out of it though. Look, she actually wants me to pet her.” Niall lifted his hand up and immediately a series of low and uncertain whines escaped out of Banksy’s slackened mouth. Niall resumed his gentle carding and the heartstring tugging sounds ceased. Long fingers studiously avoided her pink abdomen.

“It’s the anaesthesia wearing off. Might last a few hours yet.”

“Freaked me the fuck out at first. Nearly had a heart attack at the level of noise she made when I had to pick her up. Thanks again, Harry, for coming over and offering your moral support and doggy skills and whatever.”

“You don’t need to keep thanking me. I’m happy to be here helping you.”

Niall took a large bite of pizza, chewed, nodded, and swallowed, all of this with his face fixed towards the massive flat screen television.

“By the way, Louis invited me to a barbecue this Sunday.”

“Oh?” Niall lazily followed the trajectory of the ball across the screen.

“That’s he’s having here.”

“Oh.” Niall sat up straighter. “That devious twat. Thanks for the heads up.”

“I got your back.” Harry held out his fist.

Niall’s met his in a rapid, greasy bro bump. Little more was said after that as they both settled in for an evening of mindless telly and dog monitoring. And when Harry draped an afghan over Niall and a sleepy blond head lolled its way onto his shoulder, Harry carefully said nothing at all.

The lengthening shadows of the afternoon had long since deepened to encompassing night when Harry finally shook Niall awake. “Come on, Niall. You’re gonna get a sore neck if you stay like that much longer. Up you go.”

Niall stumbled onto his feet, his toes peeking out from under too long trackies, and hesitated over a lightly panting Banksy. Wordlessly, Harry stepped in and scooped her up in his large hands, the beat of her heart fast and her whines shrill though she lay like dead weight against him. Niall followed squint eyed behind him up the stairs with Harry’s bag clutched close to him in a tight grip. They passed the open guest room and the bathroom. Only the door at the end of the hall remained closed. They entered Niall’s bedroom where Harry placed Banksy down light as a feather upon her doggy bed.

Niall hovered at Harry’s elbow, chapped bottom lip caught between his teeth as Banksy’s head drooped and her glassy eyes closed. Harry scratched lightly behind her ears and then straightened and turned. He ended up squarely in Niall’s personal space, their faces almost brushing. For a moment, they both stood there immobile, wide green caught up in blue until the solid bundle of his bag smacked Harry in the chest.

“Well, goodnight Harry,” Niall said suddenly on the other side of the room. Turning to the bed, he fiddled with the blankets and restlessly smoothed down the sheets.

“If you need anything,” Harry could not stop from offering, to which Niall said nothing. Harry bit back a sigh and all the other things he wanted to lay out between them at Niall’s feet. Instead, he forced his own bumbling ones to pivot and leave the other behind to his rest. “‘G’night Niall,” Harry said at the door and across the widening distance. He would always respect Niall’s wishes, even at the cost of his own.

Not ten minutes later, a hurried knock rapped against the guest room door along with a whisper-shout call of Harry’s name. Throwing off the covers and hopping out of the bed he had just lay down in, Harry answered dressed in the heavy pyjamas he had purchased for this occasion. Most nights, Harry slept in his pants or nothing at all.

On the other side, Niall, with the dangling cuffs of his loose black shirt stretched and clenched in his fists, flicked his gaze over Harry and relaxed his shoulders a touch at finding the other similarly clothed.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s Banksy. She hasn’t stopped crying since you left. I think she’s scared.”

The way Niall fidgeted and wouldn’t quite meet his eyes, Harry didn’t think she was the only one who felt that way. They walked along the dim hallway and returned to the darkened bedroom Harry had so recently vacated. Plaintive noises cut through the peace of the night. Harry’s long legs ate up the length of the floor and halted next to the dog bed. Banksy’s whimpers lessened at his touch, but did not cease. Black nose sniffing, her unfocused eyes flitted restlessly.

“She’s looking for you, I think.”

At the press of Niall’s hand on heaving ribs, she fell silent. The moment he lifted his touch away, she started up again. “What do I do? Neither of us can sleep this way.”

“You could put her on the bed next to you.”

“I don’t want to jostle her again if I don’t have to.” Blue eyes looked from the bed to Banksy and then back again to the neat and deliberately untouched side. Zayn's side. Her cries for Niall grew louder. “I’ll sleep on the ground.” Niall marched over to the bed and before he could change his mind, he tore the blankets free. In a single move, he unmade what had been tucked in and away for months.

The blankets dropped in a heap at his feet. Breathing heavily, Niall stepped over them and knelt upon the ground next to Banksy. Nerveless fingers searched out her head. A hush descended over the room that Harry couldn’t be the one to break.

Two words worked their way out of Niall’s throat. “Stay, please.”

Harry felt the weight of them thicken the air and settle upon his chest. “Yeah, ok, I’m just gonna go, um, grab a pillow. Back in a tick.”

Seizing the comforter from the guest room as well for good measure, Harry raced back to see that Niall hadn’t moved an inch from his stooped position on the floor. Harry set about spreading out blankets and fluffing the two pillows around him. The makeshift bed made, Harry tugged Niall down into it. The blonde man curled up on his side and continued to stroke along Banksy’s spine in slow ups and downs.

“You can sleep on the bed if you want. No need for us both to be uncomfortable.”

Harry lay down on the hard floor next to Niall and settled the blankets over top of them. He placed a hand on the cotton clad back in front of him and felt the muscles underneath jump, tense, and then ultimately relax under his steady touch. The warmth of Niall’s body seeped into him, right down to the bone.

“Where I am is fine.”

Not looking at one another, they breathed their goodnights up into the dark.

The day of the barbecue dawned overcast, which seemed to reflect Niall’s apparent mood upon the opening of his front door. Pale blue eyes roved and took in the three men standing on his doorstep, his face flickering not at all.

“Surprise!” Louis screamed into Niall’s bland expression. Standing next to him, Liam shrugged his broad shoulders and offered up a crinkly eyed smile. Harry pulled funny faces at the back of Louis’ head that Niall had to avert his gaze from.

“Hello. I suppose you’d best come in,” Niall said, his tone carefully bored. He stepped aside and nudged a vigilant Banksy along with him.

“Is that it?” Louis demanded. The black canvas rucksack and brimming grocery bag held in his hands swung erratically.

“Is what it?” Niall parroted. “Did you want to stay out here then?”

“Oh forget it! See if I ever do anything nice for you again,” Louis said and stomped past the unruffled blonde. Liam followed after wrapping one arm around Niall’s shoulders in greeting, beer case clanking against his side, and left Harry to bring up the rear. The two shared a swift and discreet low five out of sight of the others.

“Wow, she’s gotten really gorgeous.” Liam placed the two cases of beer on the ground and bent forward to pet Banksy’s plush looking ruff, but the dog bypassed him with barely a glance and went straight for Harry. “Well that’s rude.” Happy little growls emitted from Banksy’s throat as she pushed between Harry’s legs and shook her bum excitedly.

Niall snorted. “Have you met my dog before?”

But it was true that time had brought about pleasant changes in appearance, if not in temperament, in Banksy that had only been hinted at in her infancy. The cardboard hued fuzz of her puppy coat had long since been shed and replaced by thick, soft fur that shone golden red. With her lean, lupine form and watchful black eyes, she more closely resembled a creature of creeks and forests than most any of her four-legged counterparts that dwelled in the city.

“She looks like a fox!”

“Zayn always wanted what he called a ‘proper looking’ canine. You know how he was always spouting some philosophical shit about returning to our roots and finding our natures. Never occurred to him how difficult it would be to live with a wild beast in the middle of fucking London.”

Hefting up one of Liam’s cases of beer, "Cheers, mate," Niall said and missed the gobsmacked face that Liam turned on Louis.

Looking entirely too smug about the situation, Louis set his bags down and grabbed at Banksy. He ignored her struggling while dodging nipping teeth. “Come to Uncle Lou. Gotcha, bitch.”

“Louis!”

“Is that not the precise and proper use of the word? Back me up, Styles. You should all defer to me anyway. I am a physician of veterinary medicine.”

“Yeah and I don’t know how. That’s like Liam being a professor of English Literature.”

Liam’s warm brown eyes narrowed at Niall. “Or Niall a priest. How many sins are you up to now?” He ticked off his fingers. “You got gluttony, pride, and sloth on lock.”

“Lust,” Louis chimed in.

“Oh yeah! Remember that time he–”

“Ganging up and insulting me in me own home? That’s not on. What about Harry here?” Niall interrupted and unabashedly threw Harry to the wolves. The three close friends leveled the collective power of their smirks on the hapless fourth. “Can’t see him as a farmer, though he does have the hats for it.”

Liam tilted his head, considering. “Maybe if it was one of those hippie commune style ones. You know, free-range and grass fed and all that.”

“Yeah and then they shovel the shit on to grow organic strawberries. Only £10 a half carton.” Louis snapped his fingers. “I know. Picture Mr. Harry Styles here as...” a splayed hand thrust out in front of him at a dramatic angle, “a pop star!”

A pause followed where they gave the idea its careful due. Then, as one, the three burst into raucous laughter.

“Imagine his spastic dance moves?”

“I can just hear the shitty existentialist angst he’d subject us to in song form.”

“God, his interviews would ramble on forever and a day.”

Pouting, Harry took their ribbing and said, “I think I’d make a great pop star,” but of course this only brought forth a second round of laughter. The warm sound surrounded Harry and tugged him gently into the fold.

Still bright with amusement, they filed into the kitchen. Niall placed the beer on the counter and reached for Louis’ pack only to have the plastic Waitrose bag—Harry had insisted on it over Tesco and also had them detour 15 minutes out of their way to the closest Marks & Spencer to pick up a tin of those Belgian biscuits and custard creams that he knew Niall liked—thrown at him instead. He caught the bag without a hitch and set about sorting its contents and fitting things into the refrigerator.

Loaded up with trays of meat and bottles of beer, Louis led them out to the back garden. He slid the wide patio doors all the way open. “Let’s get this motherfucking barbecue started.” Banksy, following at Niall’s heels, kept a cautious distance from the boisterous man.

“Is this how he acts at the clinic?” Liam lagged behind to ask Harry.

“Answer that and I’ll dock your pay.”

Niall smacked the side of Louis’ head on his way over to the barbecue. “That would be a yes,” Niall called out to Liam. Louis retaliated by hanging off of him and generally making it as hard as possible to stack the briquettes and finish setting up. Banksy loped off to the far end of the garden and settled down in the cool grass to watch over them.

“Besides, we’re not at the clinic right now. When I’m with my boys, I don’t have to worry about posh things like manners. Heard you took on a few new jobs.”

“Really, Niall? That’s fantastic!” A wood and metal flipper wielding Liam hip checked them out of the way and took over the grilling duties. He rearranged all the utensils and the food to his satisfaction.

Louis bit at the red creeping up Niall’s neck. “Speaking of manners,” Niall said and placed his palm directly on top of Louis’s face and pushed. “It’s just some easy TV adverts. How the hell do you know about that anyway?”

“TV adverts?” Harry said.

Louis propped his hands up on his hips, elbows out, and clucked his tongue at Niall. “In all your training sessions, you never bothered to tell Harry about what you do to afford all this expensive shit? Now who’s the rude one?”

“It didn’t come up,” Niall shrugged, but didn’t meet either of their eyes.

“If this is going to work between all of us, there can’t be secrets.” Louis pointed at the glass doors behind them. “Go on then. Show Harry your studio.”

“I wasn’t hiding it.” Louis pinned Niall with a look that they all knew from experience would not be in his best interests to argue with. “Fine. Keep an eye on Banksy. This way, Harry.”

They went inside and Niall ushered Harry over to a section of the flat that he had never been to before: the basement. They stopped in front of a white door with the words ‘Where the Craic Happens’ spray painted across the front in expertly stylized black lettering. Niall turned the knob, reached in to flip on the light, and held open the door for Harry to step into another part of his life.

The first section of the room housed a complicated console with an intimidating array of knobs, switches, and buttons and several powered down monitors. A thick glass window separated the small mixing and editing space from a large sound stage filled to the brim with all sorts of strange and wonderful props. A huge, white projection screen stretched across one wall and rectangular sections of wood, sand, marble, gravel, carpet, and other surfaces that Harry didn’t recognize composed the floor. Several pairs of trainers and high heels and sandals scattered across them.

“I’m a Foley artist,” Niall explained. “All the ambient sounds you hardly even notice in television programs and films, that’s what I create and record here. Cloth, props, and footsteps are my trade.”  

“This is so sick,” Harry enthused and spun around in a circle with arms stretched wide. His attention landed on a large, colourful mural that exploded across the wall behind them. At the centre of the mash up of images and symbols, a clear caricature of Niall messed around with another dark haired cartoon figure. The only thing missing from the scene were the little red hearts that surely must have floated above their heads every day of their lives together. And maybe a small red dog with a much larger than life attitude.

“Zayn started this the first day we opened the studio. He added a little bit more to it with every new milestone we achieved. He’s– he _was_ an up and coming street artist.” An ugly, choked laugh filled the room. “Demand for his work has only skyrocketed since.”

Pain and a bitterness that bordered on hate ravaged Niall’s features as he got lost in the swirl of colours that depicted everything that had been taken from him. Harry stepped next to Niall and risked placing an anchoring touch upon his shoulder. He exhaled his relief when Niall didn’t immediately shrug him off and shove him away. “It’s beautiful.”

Niall snapped abruptly into the present at Harry’s earnestly uttered words. His hard gaze slipped along the strong lines that formed his lovingly rendered likeness and gradually thawed. “It is, isn’t it? I’d forgotten.”

“Banksy would look good there, don’t you think?” Harry said gesturing to a space above the Niall illustration.

Niall followed the point of Harry's finger. “You know, I never wanted her. She was entirely Zayn’s idea. And even though I said no a million times, he still went ahead and put down the deposit at the breeder’s for the next litter, named a puppy we didn’t have yet, and bought all the most ridiculous and expensive shit for her. Then, after he didn’t come home, I forgot all about her until I received the call that she was ready. The day I went to pick her up was the first time I left the flat since everything fell apart.”

Niall leant back to take in the whole of the work, his body pressing into the point of contact between them. “Too bad I'm shit at drawing, but yeah, that's about the right spot for her. Thank you for reminding me, Harry.”

Harry could only nod, fingers tightening the slightest bit, his heart too full up to speak. He didn't think there would ever be words enough to express everything he felt and wanted in that moment. Instead, he sent up his own thoughts of thanks to a man he had never met for giving Niall something he hadn't known he needed and ultimately, generously, setting him on a path that led to Harry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sappy. Too sappy? More sap to come!


	4. Like a Dog with a Bone

Almost completely focussed on a pensive, but smiling, Niall at his side, Harry saw the rainbow bright globules and the flash of Louis’ sadistic grin entirely too late. The two passed through the sliding patio doors into the back garden, Harry’s arms rising reflexively as he took in the open rucksack and Louis’ reaching fingers out of the corner of his sight. A distant part of his brain noted Liam’s sheepish shuffling in the background in the split second before the barrage. Acting entirely on instinct, Harry threw his longer, wider body to the forefront.

The brunt of the assault caught Harry on his stomach and chest, though one particularly ambitious water balloon smacked him squarely on the chin. The resulting explosion sprayed all over his face and a bit into his mouth. The bitter taste of rubber landed on his tongue.

“Louis, you fucking cunt!" Niall yelled. He was careful to not step out from behind Harry until he had ascertained the emptiness of the bag at Louis’ feet. “You too Liam!”

Liam spluttered a bit like he was the one with the mouthful of tepid balloon water. “That's not fair! No mere man can stop Louis from doing what he wants to.”

“Best to just give up and give in,” Louis agreed. “Though really, Harry, you could have shared the bounty with Niall at least a little.

“Absolutely not,” Harry said and proceeded to shake out his damp ringlets.

“You know we're gonna have to pay you back now,” Niall threatened.

Harry shuddered with more than the cold from the breeze on his sopping body. By this point, he knew full well that he'd follow Niall through fire and brimstone. A very good thing for Niall because a Louis Tomlinson intent on mischief promised all that and more. Not so good for Harry as he suspected that the odds of survival, with his soft, human spirit and weaker flesh, would not be in his favour.

“Looking forward to it, mate,” Louis said, his expression fond, eager, and demonic all at once. “Now let’s get the hero a dry shirt.”

Keeping his head down and out of it, Harry focussed on unbuttoning the fastenings of his dripping cotton shirt. Thus he didn’t see the way that Niall and Liam stared. When Harry peeled off the clinging material, they all missed the satisfied tilting of Louis’ head.

The silence that descended over the back garden had Harry’s gaze rising. He looked into a baffling expression of smugness and then got stuck on the next dazed one. Blank blue eyes roamed over the sinuous dips and peaks of Harry’s naked torso and followed the meandering paths drawn in flourishes of black ink.

In Niall’s boyish face over a rigidly held body, which Harry suspected was entirely unmarked under the cover of simple tee and shorts, he was unable to find much beyond the slack-jawed expression. Hardly one to ever be conscious of his body, Harry floundered with the sudden urge to hide from Niall’s unblemished sight. He twisted the damp material in his fingers and shivered.

“Holy shit, Harry! Never would have guessed you had all of that under there.” Liam scratched idly at one of the three chevrons that pointed down the length of his forearm. “The only other person I knew with that much ink was– ”

Niall jerked to the side, face snapping away. Skin pink from the hazy sun flushed darker and then whitened to bone, the lines around his down-turned mouth deepening. The hands held at Niall’s side formed tight fists on their way through the patio doors.

“Liam, you oaf!”

“Zayn?” Harry asked in a much quieter voice.

Liam’s blushing stammer gave Harry all the answer that he needed.

“All my hard work,” Louis moaned. “Off I go then, to fix what you’ve buggered up.” He threw his hands up and made to follow.

Liam charged forward and caught Louis by the elbow. “Let me.”

Slitted eyes deliberated on Liam’s worthiness.

Liam rolled his. “I love him too, you know.” He dropped his hold on Louis. Without waiting for further permission, he jogged inside.

Harry and Louis watched Liam disappear up the stairs. A moment of silence and stillness passed followed by Louis’ foot tapping out a slow, measured beat upon the grass that Harry could somehow feel the rhythm of in the pit of his stomach. After 10 unsettling repetitions, Louis latched onto his arm and dragged him along the same path their friends had so recently trod.

“Shut up,” Louis hissed, though Harry had yet to say anything as he trailed the other man up the stairs. They stopped out of sight of the ajar door to Niall’s bedroom.

Harry absently noted the closed door at the end of the hall before turning to Louis. “Do you really think we should be doing this?”

“I already told you to shut it!” Louis yanked him over and down until they pressed against the wall next to the door frame, ears angled for optimal acoustics.

Niall’s voice floated out into the hallway. “It’s ok. Stop fucking apologizing. Give me a minute and we can go back downstairs.”

Liam lasted about 45 seconds before he had to speak. “It’s only, I think Harry could be just as good–”

“No,” Louis whisper-groaned, elongating the ‘o’ under his breath.

“Don’t you dare finish that fucking sentence!”

An ill feeling wound its way through Harry’s body like his blood had reversed and was rushing the wrong way through the myriad veins and vessels.

“This isn’t like chucking out an old pair of trainers. Let me run to the shops and everything’s good as new.”

“Of course it’s not, but Zayn wouldn’t have wanted–”

“ _Zayn_ doesn’t want a goddamn fucking thing. _Zayn_ is gone.”

“Niall,” Liam said in that fatherly tone that set even Harry’s teeth on edge. “You know that’s not fair.”

“Fair? You seriously going to stand there and lecture me on what’s fucking fair? How is any part of this fair?”

“Niall,” Liam said much more softly.

Louis mouthed the name alongside him. Feeling overwhelmed by the thudding of his own heart, Harry swayed on his feet. He clamped a hand on Louis’ shoulder to stay upright and also with the vague idea of forcing them all away from these wounds that they couldn’t seem to stop picking at and opening up wider.

“He left me behind!”

The breath whooshed out of Harry. His chest constricted so harshly that it felt as if his atria and ventricles would burst. The pained gasp of air went unnoticed under the animalistic grunts, rustling cloth, and smacks of flesh on skin that emanated from the bedroom. Alarmed, Louis and Harry inched forward and saw Liam use his greater bulk and reach to wrestle Niall into an unrelenting embrace.

“But he didn’t leave you alone.”

Liam kept repeating the words while he held Niall through his thrashing and shaky cursing. Eventually, with nowhere else to go and nothing more to do, Niall collapsed on Liam and buried his wet, sniffling face. The other held him close and up. “Why do I even bother fighting you twats?”

“It’s useless,” Liam said and pressed a kiss to Niall’s temple. “You’ll never be rid of us.”

“Damn right,” Louis said. He offered no further resistance to Harry’s efforts to haul him away.

They returned to the back garden and an anxious Bansky who immediately jumped at Harry and butted her head against his calves. Absently scratching behind her twitching ears, Harry spoke, “Do you think we should go? I think, I mean, Niall probably wants to be alone after that. We should give him some space.” Harry thought they had invaded his privacy more than enough for a single afternoon, though he knew better than to say so to Louis.

Banksy’s intermittent barking provided a soundtrack to Louis’ stroll over to the barbecue. He picked up the pair of tongs and proceeded to haphazardly move around sausages and flip over pieces of chicken breast. “You think these are done?” Louis glanced over his shoulder and through the glass doors into the empty living room. He beckoned Harry over with a wave of the metal utensil.

Harry walked over and peered down at distinctly pink flesh. “Um, maybe you should leave the grilling to Liam or Niall.”

Still with studied nonchalance, Louis reached up and grabbed a handful of springy brown hair. He pulled hard and fast so that Harry’s ear bent level with Louis’ scowling mouth. “Listen up and answer quick. I think you know the score now. What are your intentions with Niall?”

Harry attempted to detangle Louis’ fingers, but he merely tightened them in response. Wincing, Harry said between clenched teeth, “That’s between me and him.”

“Haha, you’re cute, but no.” Louis tugged and Harry’s eyes watered. “You see, the three of us are a package deal. Four if you count the mutt, which I know you do. I meant what I said earlier about there being no secrets. And if you’re going to fuck off after seeing Niall at his weakest, you need to tell me right now. Give me a head start on where to stash your body.”

Always a pacifist, Harry was completely unused to such harsh treatment. A whine wrenched out of his throat that sounded embarrassingly reminiscent of Banksy. “I’m not walking away,” Harry conceded to the side of Louis' head.

“What’s going on between you two?”

One of Harry’s hands snaked out and struck. He viciously twisted the fleshy lobe that dangled in his line of vision. “None. Of. Your. Business.”

Louis yowled. Dropping his fistful of curls, he sprang backwards and covered his throbbing ear. “Fuck, Styles! My ear!”

Harry soothed his stinging scalp. “If Niall wants you to know, he’ll tell you.”

They eyed each other from a safe distance. Bit by bit, Louis’ lips stretched until a grin overtook half his face. Before Harry could fully register his alarm at the maniacal sight, Louis pounced. Thin arms twined around his neck in a choking hug.

“Welcome to the family.”

That was the scene that Niall walked in on, one of Liam’s heavy arms slung over his shoulders, his own reciprocating around the other’s waist. A black t-shirt dangled from his fingers. The embracing pairs looked at one another.

Liam cleared his throat. “I think you’re suffocating him, Lou.”

“Give us a sign, mate, if you need help escaping,” Niall said.

Louis cheerfully answered for a strangled, red-faced Harry. “There’s no leaving now I’m afraid. He’s in far too deep.” Harry’s head received an affectionate pat with the barest hint of claw.

Liam smiled brightly until he happened to glance over in the direction of the barbecue. Outrage darkened his face. “Who moved all the meat around like that? Was it you, Louis? You know you’re not supposed to cook!”

“So what if I did?” Louis released Harry and moved to stand behind him. His head popped up mole-like over his shoulder. “Come at me, bro.” Squeaking, he dodged over to Niall when Liam took him up on his invitation.

Niall neatly sidestepped out of the way to the tune of another squeal. Leaving Louis to Liam’s tender mercy, he approached Harry and handed over the dry piece of clothing. “That’s one of my bigger shirts.”

Smooth cotton that smelled faintly of Niall settled over his skin. Standing side by side, they watched Liam march Louis over to the barbecue and then launch into an extremely detailed lecture on the proper techniques of grilling.

“How’s it fit?” Niall asked, though he could see the answer to that easily enough.

Louis’ words to him earlier about family and everything else still ringing in his ears, Harry said, “Like it was made just for me.”

The barbecue passed as did other meals of increasing frequency in the months that followed. These were chased down with pints at pubs and long conversations of varying degrees of idiocy and insightfulness. In these ways, Louis and Liam took up residence in the corners of Harry’s world, but it was Niall who crept like a root under his foundation, the tendrils of him loosening and displacing all that he had once built his days upon.

Then Niall disappeared and the shifting and perforated structures of Harry’s life collapsed. One day, Niall simply stopped answering his phone; calls went directly to voicemail and texts disappeared into a black void never to be heard from again. Long, loud knocks on his front door yielded no response, though Banksy’s uninterrupted barks on the other side both reassured and dismayed Harry. He broke down and went to Louis.

“Well,” Louis said in a measured tone, all of them, in their own way and time, zealous guardians of Niall’s trust. “It’s been exactly a year since, you know.” His own expression and near-perpetual exuberance deflated. “Give him time, yeah?”

But Harry found that he could not. For a whole week he wobbled and fretted until one day, after his shift, his feet finally carried him to the tube and then out along the familiar blocks. Bypassing the cheery red door, Harry snuck down a narrow walkway and skulked along the long, high barrier of a fence. He scrambled over a series of them, tight denim straining entirely the wrong way up the wrong places, before he fell into the cushioning grass of Niall's back garden. Banksy waited for him at the sliding doors, her dainty front paws pressed to the glass.

The unlocked door moved along its track with a soft snick. Harry exhaled his relief. Banksy bounded out and over to the far side of the garden, her head canting in degrees to keep an eye on Harry as darkness lengthened across the lawn. She crouched into a long, but not excessively so, wee.

“Inside,” Harry called out when she finished her business.

Banksy took a meandering route around the grass on her way into the flat. Harry slid the door closed behind her sashaying tail and flipped the latch into the locked position. From there, it didn’t take long to locate Niall; Harry found him curled up in his bed under the cover of blankets, only the tufts of his blond hair visible.

“Hey,” Harry drew out the syllable as he stood at the foot of the bed and scrambled to think of something less idiotic to say. Banksy jumped up onto the bed and flopped next to the unmoving lump.

“Sorry to drop in like this.” Like Harry hadn’t effectively broken into Niall’s flat. “Was, um, in the neighbourhood, on a bit of a walkabout, and thought I'd make sure you were ok.”

Niall’s voice came to him as if from a great distance, sounding hoarse and low and buried under such heavy things. “Knew one of you’d be by eventually. I hoped it wouldn’t be you.”

The words sliced neat and bloodless straight between Harry's ribs. He determinedly ignored the white-hot flash of agony. “Are you hungry? I can make you something. Or order in. Anything you want.”

“You shouldn’t have come.”

Clasping his hands tightly at the small of his back, Harry launched into a thorough retelling of his day. He started with what he had eaten for breakfast. “Homemade granola– I’ll bring you some next time– with Greek yogurt, excellent source of protein that, and a nice, yellow banana.”

“Go home, Harry.”

Harry continued on with describing his morning commute where he had been forced to publicly shame a man in a smart trench coach into giving up his seat to an expectant mother. “From this year’s Prorsum line even. But I guess it’s true that you can’t buy class or manners.”

“I’m tired,” Niall said, but under the covers he untucked his knees from his chest.

“Saw the fattest Russian blue cat today for one of my appointments. I think it’s criminal when owners let their pets get that huge, but can I admit that part of me wanted to feed that thing my lunch and smush him up in my arms?”

The lump rolled over. Niall’s wan face emerged. “You’re ridiculous.”

“An elderly gentleman came in with a cute little beagle. Not as cute as Banksy mind, but still really adorable. Had a nasty laceration on its hind leg that took us over 20 stitches to close. Be careful if you ever take Banksy to the dog park. You never know what's skulking around out there. Not every owner out there is as responsible as you are.”

A bit of colour appeared in Niall’s cheeks. “We both know I’m complete rubbish at all of this. If it weren’t for you...”

“You got help when you needed it. That’s just as good.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s not.”

A drawn out gurgle from the middle of the blankets interrupted their silly argument.

Harry tried to stand tall and imposing. “I’m making you a sandwich. It’ll be waiting for you after your shower.” Hidden away behind his torso, Niall couldn’t see the way his fingers trembled.

Niall’s own hand wound its way out of the covers to stroke at golden red fur. His stomach grumbled again and he sighed. “Ok, Harry.”

They ate in the breakfast nook of the kitchen. Niall’s hair gleamed dark and curling from the shower under the artificial light. The skin around his eyes was tender and pink like a newborn, but dry. He swallowed up the crumbs from his sandwich.

“Do you want anything else?” Harry perched on the edge of the straight backed chair, his own half-eaten sandwich falling to pieces on the plate. He sat ready at a moment’s notice to leap up and fetch and make and deliver.

“No, Harry. Don’t. Stop, please.” Calloused fingers reached out and curled around Harry’s free wrist. “You shouldn’t do this anymore.”

Harry bit through the last of his intact sandwich and clipped the tip of his tongue on his teeth. Needle point pain and salty sweet blood flooded his mouth. He focussed of that and on the press of Niall’s skin on his own. Everything else he swallowed down.

“You came at a bad time, Harry. The worst really.”

Harry’s tongue throbbed and flailed about in his mouth. “But it was the only time.”

“It'd be best if you went home.”

Dry crust lodged in Harry’s throat.

Niall carefully set Harry’s wrist down on the table, the tip of his index finger trailing over the point of his pulse. “But it’s late. Stay over if you like.” Without looking at the other, Niall left Harry behind in the kitchen.

Harry sat alone in the yawning silence. He peered out into the darkened hallway and pictured the doors that lay beyond. The front door with its bright red facade led out into familiar, if empty streets. A plain, likely closed, bedroom door waited at the top of a long flight of stairs. Niall had made it more than clear where he thought Harry should go. Standing, Harry left the dishes, the remnants of his efforts behind, and walked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the story that just won't stop growing. Upping the rating for the next, and final (promise!) chapter, *winkwink*nudgenudge.


	5. Love Me, Love My Dog

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Purple prose pr0n ahead. Ye be warned.

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

Shirt falling to the floor, Niall cocked his head over his naked shoulder. In the dimness of the bedroom, the breadth of his back fairly glowed, smooth and gravitating like the moon. The vision and the question lashed across all of Harry’s senses. Turning his head away, left with the burnt in afterimage painting his sight scarlet, Harry knew what the other was really asking was, _Are you sure you want to do this to yourself?_

Harry opened his eyes wide and looked full on. “Yes.” He strode forward and murmured against that pale, soft skin. “I’ll always be here when you need me.”

The rest of the promises that bloomed inside of him, Harry kept pressed down under his thumb, tucked away almost out of view in the corner of his eye, and strangled under his tongue. But he hoped that the other felt them in every touch that seared, all the looks that lingered too long, and in the press of lips that drank deeper. He hoped that they healed Niall as much as they hurt.

The first dry touch of their mouths seemed to tear something open in Niall. He fell upon Harry in a tangle of grasping fingers, greedy tongue, and insistent knees. In short order, without Harry quite realizing how, he had them both stripped of shirts and trousers. Fingertips trailed fire along the cut of his hipbones. When hot, heavy hands plunged under the waistband of his tight boxer briefs, Harry nearly incinerated on the spot.

“Use me. Wreck me.” That lilting voice whispered sinful things against his throat. “Anything you want Harry.” 

Breathing hard, Harry fought against a fire that would consume the both of them and leave nothing behind. His larger hands caught and interlaced with Niall’s. They twisted and pulled in his grasp, but Harry refused to let go. “I’m gonna take care of you.”

“Harry– Harry–” Niall panted. His teeth and tongue nipped and lapped at the salt of Harry’s collarbone. “Fucking do something!”

“Shh, Niall.” Harry brought Niall’s hands forward around his waist and settled them against the small of his back. He finally released them when the forearms ceased to twitch in the curve of his side. “Only want to make you feel good.”

In millimetre increments, Harry eased down the last of their layers. The unhurried process took inordinately longer when he had to stop and wait for a groping limb to subside or a snarl to grudgingly calm. They got there eventually, iron will clashing against a rigid heart. Harry steeled his reeling head against the onslaught of hard, exposed flesh that dragged so sweetly across his own and the heady, co-mingled musk of their arousal that wrapped like cotton wool around his ability to think.

Niall tugged at his ear with sharp, white teeth. “Let me suck your cock. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? To choke me with it. Force me open. Make me feel you.”

In a fog, Harry fumbled for the edge of the bed and pulled Niall along with him. He fended off the ravenous claws as best he could, each cunning scrape on his covetous nerve endings threatening to send him spilling over the edge. The mattress met the bend of his knees; Harry fell grateful into its softness. Niall tumbled after him and into his lap. Immediately wrapping the slighter man up in his arms, Niall’s back to his front, Harry rained butterfly kisses on the moles and beauty marks dotting the shoulders in front of him. 

Niall ground down on the hard, aching cock jutting hotly between the cleft of his ass. Twisting his neck at a severe angle, he bit and sucked at Harry’s lips. Harry kissed back into the assault for a moment, long enough to slip his knees in between Niall’s. He tilted his hips up and spread both of their thighs wide.

Niall’s half-hard cock flopped against his pale stomach with the sudden movement and shift in angle. Grabbing hold of Niall’s chin, Harry eased his head to the side and slowed the frantic pace of his mouth into deep, open kisses. Tongues slipping and curling, Harry licked at the roof of Niall’s mouth and stroked along every ridge and bump.

Harry’s other hand meandered across Niall’s chest to play with his pert, pink nipples. Alternately rolling, pinching, and rubbing soothingly between his thumb and forefinger, Harry lightened his grip on Niall’s distracted face. When the languid kisses continued, he dropped his hand to the other’s stomach and felt the abs there jump and contract. His hand slid lower, blunt nails carding through the coarse hair.

Niall ripped his mouth away. “Stop torturing me! Fuck me already!”

But Harry continued his unhurried pace, his careful strums and plucks. He settled both large hands on the sensitive skin between Niall's thigh and groin. The wide, splayed angles of his fingers framed the flushed flesh that jerked and cried for attention. “You’re so beautiful. So wonderful.”

Harry ghosted his lips over the thrumming pulse in Niall’s neck. The first dry tug on Niall’s cock ripped an answering whimper from a raw throat that Harry could feel the reverberation of straight down to his toes. They pointed and curled upon the smooth sheets.

“It’s ok. I got you.” After a few more long strokes, Harry gently slid the foreskin down to expose the red, sensitive head. Pearlescent drops of precome gathered in the slit. Harry wet and rubbed the rough pad of his thumb in the slightly sticky fluid.  In tight little circles, he smoothed the precome all over the glans. More drops welled up and dribbled over.

Every tremor and cry he wrung from Niall travelled through his stomach and down to his own aching cock. He slicked both his palms and launched into a twisting, variable rhythm that kept Niall bucking and searching. Tilting further back, Harry rutted his hips up in counterpoint to the pace set by his hands. Niall fell against him spread wide open. He mouthed mindlessly at the smooth lines of ink on Harry’s skin.

Harry adjusted his thrusts so that the fat length of cock dragged between Niall’s cheeks and teased hot and wet at his greedy hole. “You deserve everything good in this world. All of it.” He nibbled at Niall’s ear, laved it with the point of his tongue, and then blew a cool stream of air over the delicate shell. Gooseflesh erupted across Niall’s skin.

“But you–”

Harry cupped the heavy sacs underneath and Niall’s sentence strangled off into a moan. Rolling them in his clever fingers, Harry felt them draw up tight. The red, weeping cock in his other firmly stroking hand went impossibly harder and hotter. Harry sped up. Pushed for more.

“This is for you.” Harry pressed their open, gasping mouths together. “Not going anywhere. Come for me.”

They fell screaming together over the edge. Hips underneath and hands above stuttering, warm, white cum spurted out to paint heaving stomachs and backs. The stream slowed to a trickle over Harry’s pumping fingers. A different kind of wetness dripped down and scalded his chest.

“Let it out,” Harry whispered into the limp blond hair. 

“I’m sorry! I can’t stop,” Niall said through shudders and hiccups. He buried his face in the joint between Harry's shoulder and neck. “I don’t even know why. I’m sorry.”

Heedless of the mess, Harry gathered Niall up in his arms and rocked him. “I got you. I’m here. Won’t let you go.”

Bit by bit, the tension leeched away and breaths came easier. Not wanting to get up and put any more distance between them, Harry scrubbed at their torsos with the corner of a sheet and then tossed the soiled cloth aside. He laid a bone weary Niall out on his side and covered him with blankets and Harry’s own warm body.

“Zayn would have loved you,” Niall mumbled in the moment before he cried himself to sleep.

Drawing back from the barely there kiss he pressed to Niall’s forehead, Harry dropped his heavy head onto the pillow beside him. Exhaustion weighed upon him, but his thoughts twined continuously around all the ways that a single sentence could be both a benediction and a death knell.

Eventually, Harry slept a grey and restless sleep. When he awoke, Niall was gone. A single key lay in the barren space beside him. Harry palmed the cold metal, hard teeth biting into his closed fist.

For that first morning, Harry remained in Niall’s bed, wrapped up in Niall’s sheets, his head on Niall’s pillow. No barks cut through the enveloping silence; no clatter of claws rushed about on the hardwood. There was only Harry.

His mobile beeped at him incessantly with nothing worth getting up for. After the sixth consecutive call, he finally stirred enough to answer and inform Louis that, no, he wasn’t coming in, and no, he didn’t know when he would be back. The screen of his phone winked out mid screech, the battery, the reserves, depleted, dead, done. The phone dropped into the sheets from Harry’s listless fingers.

Niall had not returned by the time early afternoon light slanted through the windows. Harry balled up the pillowcases, the sheets, and the comforter against his naked chest and walked with loose ends trailing down the stairs. In the utility room, he threw his armload into the washer. He got as far as measuring out the detergent before he had to stop; the trembling of his hands threatened to send the viscous blue liquid spilling onto the floor. Abandoning the soap on top of the dryer, Harry left the evidence that Niall had been his, if only for a brief moment in time, intact behind him.

He entered the kitchen. The dishes from the previous night’s meal, another lifetime ago, had been washed and put away. The cold, hard tiles stung at his bare feet, toes curling under and away, but Harry continued on across the floor to the cupboards and the pantry. Delving into the dark, cramped spaces, he took down flour and sugar, spices and leavening agents. These he lined up on the shiny granite counter next to the butter, the eggs, and the milk. Looping and tying the strings of a green 'Kiss Me I'm Irish' apron around his waist, Harry turned the knob of the oven to gas mark five and mechanically set about combining the ingredients.

The late afternoon came and went and deepened into early evening. By then the counters and the single round table were covered by improvised cooling racks. The sweet, homey scent of muffins, cakes, and loaves permeated the air.

Harry took a seat at the table. A feast spread out before him, but he felt no hunger, not for these corporeal things. The day passed with nothing more than an occasional, distant ringing to break up the minutes. At one point he heard the tentative voice of a woman, an Irish burr rounding out her vowels, worry hardening the consonants. She pleaded with the answer phone for a reply from Niall, for some indication of existence if not life. The naive hope that one could subsist off of so little echoed through the empty flat.

Harry lifted the closest muffin and bit into the moist crumb. Bringing bun after pastry to his gaping mouth, Harry masticated and swallowed until his stomach swelled and his throat choked on the brittle pieces. Stumbling to the fridge, Harry grabbed for the tall cans of Guinness. The black bitterness of the stout was a welcome salve on his tongue after the unbearable sweetness.

The beer ran dry and Harry graduated to whisky. He took to wandering while swigging the 21 year, single malt directly from the bottle. Bright, vigorous images of superheroes in flight and preening villains mocked him from their places of prominence on the walls. The stray packs of cigarettes and sticks of charcoal may have been put away, but bits of Zayn persisted everywhere from the black and white towels and matching soap dish in the guest powder room to the art deco lamps in the games room. Glass clinked against Harry's teeth; he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

The shrill clamour of the telephone cut through the haze to blast Harry's eardrums. He picked up the receiver. "He's not here."

A pause from the other side, and then, "Harry?"

"He left. I don't know when he's coming home, if he ever will." Without waiting for a response, Harry disconnected and set the phone down off its cradle.

Fiery rivulets seared his insides beyond pain to numbness. He found his body standing at the end of the upstairs hall in front of the door that had thus far remained closed to him. The door crashed open against the wall under his heavy, clumsy push.

Inside, an eclectic clash of colour attacked Harry’s fuzzy senses. A series of long, large windows let in the last of the natural sunlight. Diffusers covered the bottom halves of the glass to filter and focus the light upon the easel set up at the centre of the room.

A long desk with a shiny Mac desktop sat in the corner next to an angled drafting table. Saturated canvasses propped up against spray painted and sketch pinned walls. Harry poked amongst the canisters of brushes and the jars and tubes with names like cadmium orange and raw umber that filled the rough wood shelves beside a stainless steel sink. He thumbed at the dog-eared books and graphic novels crammed into the spaces in between. Rainbow speckles of paint splattered across the floor under his feet.

A trolley with several large tubs of acrylic waited next to the easel for an artist who would never return to finish the work they had been intended for. Yet what a monumental task it would be for those left behind to remove the supplies and redistribute and dispose, to scrub the floors and strip the walls. And then what could possibly be worthy of filling the gaping space left behind?

Harry looked upon the incomplete canvas set in the easel. Mesmerizing swirls of blue and grey shot through with deepest black and electrifying yellow reeled him into its roiling landscape. Fingertips trailed over the ridges and brushstrokes and then meandered over to the trolley. Lifting up two substantial pails, Harry exited the room and descended the stairs.

Harry reached the living room, the plush carpet softening his steps, and stopped right in the middle of all the trappings of a happy, successful life. One pail, bone black, he set aside with a dull thud. The other, light ultramarine, gave up its lid to Harry with minimal fuss. The vague expression never leaving his face, Harry spun around in a circle with the pail outstretched.

Waves of blue flew. Colliding with walls, frames, upholstery, and electronics, the blue splattered and dripped its heavy stain. The mostly empty pail dropped to the floor on its side. Sluggish trails of paint trickled onto the carpet. Stepping over it, Harry picked up the second, full pail and walked out and down once again. Plodding feet carried him to a spray painted door. The flip of a switch followed and bright, clear light stung his eyes. Bleary and childlike, Harry blinked at the mural at the back of the recording studio.

The two figures at the centre of the mural had eyes only for each other and not a glance left to spare for Harry stood on the outside. He stared until the lines writhed and blurred and nausea churned in the too full pit of his stomach. Nails scrabbled at the lid of the pail. His chest heaved, each breath an unsatisfactory labour. The lid went skittering across the floor. The pail drew back.

A hand out of nowhere clamped down on his wrist.  Steel arms caged him. Caught between two immovable bodies, everything that raged inside him came pouring out. Harry howled. Liam and Louis gathered him up, held him together, and whispered gentle things into his skin. They understood. They loved just as well. Niall had walked away from all of them.

Harry's tears slowed to soggy shudders and Liam ruffled his already disastrous curls. He set him down at arm's length and cuffed him lightly on the shoulder. "Alright now? Done doing things you're going to regret? You made a right mess of the living room."

Harry cringed. Fresh tears welled. "Yeah, I– shit. What am I going to do?"

Louis rubbed his shirtsleeves discreetly across his face. "First of all, enough snivelling. Here's the plan. Get up. Clean up. Move on."

Nose red and dripping, Harry sniffled three times in succession. “That’s it? That’s all the advice you have for me?”

“What else can you do?” Steel threaded through the words and hardened the expression of a man who refused to lose anything more. “Now can you please put on some clothes? That apron doesn’t leave much to the imagination, mate.”

Under Louis' watchful stare and Liam's steadfast care, Harry allowed his body to be bundled up and his legs to be walked out the front door. Liam and Louis moved at once and in perfect, wordless tandem, by mutual agreement never slowing long enough to allow Harry to gaze upon the wreckage. They left him no time to think.

“Not to worry,” Liam said as he locked the red door behind them. “Louis and I will take care of everything. We’ll put it all back to rights, just like how it was.”

Liam didn’t look either of them in the face as he dropped his key into the deep recesses of a pocket, his smile wide and vague and pointed towards the horizon. Harry couldn’t tell if he actually believed the words he spoke, if he saw something beyond the flat, polluted haze that Harry no longer could.

They escorted Harry to his flat and ensured that he showered and ate. In the morning, they marched him off to work. The earth kept spinning and Harry drifted into a routine that almost resembled living. Beyond that first day, the three didn’t talk about what had occurred at Niall’s flat. There was nothing to say.

Then the first package arrived. The cardboard box appeared unceremoniously at the clinic on a Wednesday morning, heavy, unadorned, and addressed to Niall Horan. It bore the black inked postmark of Helsinki. In quick, careless movements, Louis tore the box open. Packing peanuts went flying as he lifted out a bronze sculpture. Set down on the floor, the statue of a girl and her little dog reached the height of his knee.

"Be a dear and fetch the broom, Styles," Louis said and upended the box. "There's a good lad."

Harry did not move, but stood transfixed by a thin, flutter of colour in a waterfall of white polystyrene. He roused and bent to retrieve the photograph from the scattered mess.

In it, a scrawny, white-faced Niall stood in front of the same, though much larger statue in the middle of a verdant clearing. Treat in his coaxing hand, he appeared to be attempting to wrangle Bansky into a mimicry of the statue’s pose. The genuine curve of his mouth in response to Bansy’s recalcitrant wriggling suggested that he didn’t much mind his failure. Harry flipped the photograph over with Louis crowded against his side.

_The Sugar Girl, Viljo Savikurki_

Helsinki and a not too distantly past date followed, penned in Niall’s loopy handwriting. 

“What does this mean?” Harry pleaded with Louis for guidance.

“Nothing.” Louis heaved the statue back into its box and swiped the photograph to drop in alongside it. He slammed the cardboard flaps shut and whisked the box away into the bowels of his office where no one else dared venture. The questions that remained, however, were not so easily vanquished. They twisted, nettled, and loomed ever larger with every new package delivered to the clinic’s doorstep.

One week it was a huge, garish painting of a naked man, clearly in the throes of severe roid rage, wrestling a ferocious lion. Liam, who had taken to popping round for the unboxings, stroked his chin while nodding at the painting. “The Nemean Lion. The first of the twelve labours if I’m not mistaken.”

Harry and Louis stared at him agog.

“Try reading a book on occasion, you illiterate knobs,” Liam sniped at them. He followed his testiness up with a toss of his head and a haughty sniff. Harry actually felt the barest of smiles twitch at his lips for the briefest of seconds.

An illicit selfie taken with Michelangelo’s David, his teeny tiny marble wang hovering over the sly tilt of Niall’s left ear, accompanied the painting.  It was dated a week and a half prior. Harry couldn’t help but wonder and worry about Banksy stuck in her dense Nordic coat in the oppressive heat of Italy. Man and dog were all that each other had now.

A fountain plonked into the clinic next.

“Finally, something that _I_ recognize,” Louis said of the cheeky bronze boy gleefully weeing into the basin.

“I think there’s a theme.” Liam waved about the photo of Niall cuddling a squirmy Banksy in front of the real Manneken Pis.

“Yeah, the theme is Niall likes naked men. Shocking, that.” Louis motioned for Liam to haul the heavy fountain away.

They left Harry alone with his thoughts. With no one there to stop him, to judge him, they couldn’t help delving into dearly wished for and impossible things. Hands clasped together, Niall and Harry strolled through the streets of Banksy’s ancestral lands, the aforementioned pup following at a perfect heel with the occasional nip at a calf to spur them on. He could walk forever along such dangerously gentle paths.

Harry shook the delicate glass snow globe from another delivery, iridescent confetti swirling around the miniature iron lattice tower at its centre, and was transported to Rue Mouffetard at midday, a tiny espresso cup balanced in his large hands. Slipping into a different dream, they tossed birdseed in each other’s hair at piazza San Marco to a chorus of indignant squawks and fed their laughing mouths hot chips from paper cones, never flinching away even when their fingers burned.

“Wicked!” Louis said upon pulling out a blue and red striped shirt and a second all white one from the next package. He tossed #7 to Harry before shimmying into his own. His head popped though the hole. “These are signed. That lucky Irish bastard! Do you smell sweat? Tell me I’m not touching Messi’s sweat.” The pitch of his voice rose to dog-level decibels.

For Niall, Harry would subject himself to a few FC Barcelona matches, and any number of Real Madrid ones –not his fault that Ronaldo was so much fitter– as long as Niall agreed to climb the Sagrada Familia with him in return, bum knee permitting of course.

“I’m keeping this. I don’t care what that wanker says when he finally gets back here.” Stroking the silky material draped over his chest, Louis looked up and finally noticed the look on Harry’s face. He ripped the white shirt out of his hands and reluctantly took off his own, groaning like it pained him all the while.

Louis balled the material up, strangled it, sighed a bit, and finally held up the latest photograph between them like a warding talisman. “I didn’t understand before why Niall had to leave, but look at him.” Niall beamed at them in the hot Spanish sun at the gates of Circuit de Catalunya. “He never could have moved past everything while staying here.” The photograph waved at the clinic, at London, at Harry.

“And I’m sure he didn’t want to, you know, keep you, or anything.” The photograph disappeared into the folds of material. “From your own life. With his problems.”

The way Louis spoke, careful and awkward with all the things not said, had Harry scouring his deliberately blank expression. “You’ve been talking to Niall.”

“What? No.” Louis began edging out of the room.

“Louis, just…please.” Louis paused in his slinking. Harry kept his gaze focussed on the protruding knot of thin ankles left exposed by his Toms. “Is he alright?”

If feet could shuffle pityingly, Louis’ certainly appeared to. “You know he is, Harry. You've seen the evidence.”

“Is he coming home at least?” Harry asked, a hair short of a whisper.

The feet stilled, stood firm. “Yes, of course. He was always going to come back, but Harry, you need to stop waiting for him.”

Louis’s mouth kept moving, more bitter pills no doubt dropping from the gaping orifice, but Harry could no longer hear him, not with his fragile and pathetic daydreams deflating all around him, a slow, deafening collapse.

The cold, callous world kept right on turning without him. Dizzy and sick, Harry nonetheless forced his body to crawl out from under the ruins. For everyone else’s sake, he clawed his way to standing again, all the while smiling and nodding at the appropriate moments. _Fine._ His lips shaped. _Truly._ He wore his dimpled mask and kept placing one foot in front of the other, perpetual motion lest he fall and never start up again.

A final package arrived. It looked to be about A3 size under its plain brown, protective covering and was addressed to Harry Styles in very familiar handwriting. It had a London postmark.

Harry walked out of the clinic and straight into the tube with the package tucked under his arm. A half hour later, he stood in Primrose Hill on a doorstep with a bronze sculpture of a girl and her Finnish spitz occupying the space to the right of the red door. Harry groped for the key at the end of the chain around his neck and let himself into Niall’s flat.

He noticed the walls of the hallway next. Gone was the minimalist white, replaced with soft blues and grays. The new colour scheme continued into the living room to cover over all the scars both old and fresh, on the surface and deep below. The cream carpet and red couch had been replaced by mossy woven Wilton and a pea green sofa respectively.

Framed photographs of Banksy at play, in mid growl, wearing various hats, and in front of international monuments, filled the walls. Hercules wrestled his lion to the distant left of the Banksy auction print, the only remnant of decors past, though it had been shifted from its previous spot at the centre of the longest wall. That space of prominence, sandwiched between the two large paintings, was empty save for a tiny gold hook set in the wall.

“You came.”

Harry swung around at the first sound of the other’s voice. Like a parched, delirious man stumbling into an oasis, he drank in the sun-reddened cheeks, the broader, fuller chest, and the lightness of those blue eyes. The perpetual ache in his throat that he’d hardly been aware of eased.

“Yeah.” The word came out low and strangled. Harry had to stop and cough and rein in his firing neurons in order to continue on with some semblance of normalcy. “Um, when did you arrive, here, in London?”

“Three days ago.”

In those 72 hours, Harry’s mobile had remained dark and silent. Harry waved his free hand around to keep it from clenching. Maybe it was no less than he deserved. "I'm sorry!" Harry burst out.

Niall’s head cocked, the movement smooth and easy, the angle quizzical. "What for?"

"The paint."

Niall looked around at the walls still with that affable inquiry. "You don't like it? The designer said that the colour went perfectly with the new couch. I quite fancy all the green accents."

"Designer?"

"Yeah, the one I had Louis and Liam hire for me while I was gone."

Harry couldn’t prevent all his body’s clenching at that. "Oh," he gasped. He inhaled deeply through his nose to the count of four, and then out in equal measure, but even Sama Vritti could not give him the equilibrium he so desperately needed in that moment. Only by repeating with his breaths a mantra that espoused Niall’s needs, Niall’s happiness, could he push the stinging pain of betrayal aside.

“Reckoned it was about time to let some things go.” Niall stared at Harry across the metres of space separating them.

“Where’s Banksy? How is she?” Always a safe topic.

“I left her in the back garden. She’s good. Healthy. Annoying as shit as usual, but good.”

“So are you.”

Niall let out a quick, incredulous snort. “What?”

“Healthy and good. That’s how you look,” Harry said voice thick with approval. Time away had obviously done him wonders. Luckily, for the sake of Harry’s dignity, Niall stood beyond his reach. Otherwise he might not have been able to resist the urge to grab and stroke and soak up some of the contentment that the other had found far away from him.

“Yeah, I am.” Niall smiled and nodded. Then the clouds rolled in. “Look, I’m just gonna say it. You look like utter shit, mate. What have you been doing to yourself, Harry?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? Harry, c’mon. You should have been over the moon that you didn’t have this sad lump to worry about anymore." A sharp slash of his hand through the air. "My fucking dead weight cut off of your back. I expected you to be out there celebrating and living it up.”

Clearly, Louis and Liam hadn’t been burdening Niall with tales of Harry’s pathetic existence. They’d done at least that right by them both. Harry shrugged.

The air grew heavy with building agitation, a storm brewing. “Harry, I didn’t want– I never meant to–” Niall paused and bit hard at his short nails. “I left for you too, you know.”

Harry smiled soft and reassuring, no forgiveness to be found where no wrong had been committed. “It’s fine,” he soothed.

Anger flashed across Niall’s face. “How can you say that? Fuck, Harry. All I do is hurt you. Even when I’m trying to do the right thing.” Niall lunged and yanked the package out from under Harry’s arm. “This was a mistake.” He turned on his heel.

“You don’t get it, do you?” Harry’s low laugh stopped Niall in his tracks. “This isn’t a mistake. It’s not a weakness. I know exactly what I’m doing.”

“Harry, you can’t possibly– ”

“I’m in love with you. All of you. I think I loved you from the moment your dog first threw up on me. I knew it by the fourth time. Nothing is ever going to make me stop.”

Silence greeted his confession. Harry sighed and continued speaking to the unyielding line of Niall’s shoulders. “I understand if you can’t ever love me back. That’s fine. But don’t act like any of this, you running away, is for my sake.”

Niall’s shoulders sagged. Harry patted him lightly on the way by. Not even a full step past, a hard, flat object smacked Harry in the chest. The package slid into his open and waiting hands.

Niall’s stone side profile gave nothing away. Harry tore open the brown wrapping. Paper fell in bits and strips to the floor to reveal a framed print of an anatomically correct doodle of a human heart. Lines of red ink looped and scrawled across the white background. In the right ventricle, ‘Wish You Were Here’ was typewritten in contrasting black.

“You want to know how I knew I was falling for you?”

Beyond the print, and hidden by cloth and flesh and bone, a real heart stuttered to life.

“I woke up one day and realized that I’ve never once looked at you and wished you were Zayn. It scared the shit out of me, to be perfectly honest.”

Harry faced him, picture clutched in one hand, the other held up to his trembling mouth.

“I don’t want to hurt you anymore.”

“Then don’t.”

The length of a breath passed, a simple in and out, time enough for two hearts to fall into sync. Niall tipped his chin at the wall. Harry hung his print up in the space made for him. Easy as that.

He opened up. He reached out. They met half way.

“Welcome home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, I'm glad to finally have this done and out of my system. For anyone who's been reading and stuck with this, I hope you enjoyed the (eventual) ending. 
> 
> Sick of dog idioms yet? Of course not! This story was inspired by my own dog and the idea of Harry as Hachiko. Turned out sappier than I like, but what else could I expect given the subject matter?
> 
> It's been an interesting ride for sure, but this is where I get off *snicker*. 
> 
> Peace out.


End file.
